Band earns Sweepstakes title
By Sandy Morris
The Albany High School band walked away with a Sweepstakes concert title this week, earning ratings of 1 in concert and 1 in sightreading at the UIL Region 2, East Zone Concert and Sightreading contest held at Abilene Wylie High School on Tuesday, March 30.
AHS band director Will Vaughan was very impressed with the band’s performance.
“They improved so much in the past week,” said Vaughan. “Every day, they seemed to be more mature, and it was just a constant progression.”
The band played three selections prepared for the competition including Band in the Square by La Plante, Joy by Ticheli, and Pinnacle by Grice.
Three judges evaluated the performance with two judges awarding the band 1’s and one judge giving the performance a 2, which still gave the band a 1 rating of superior.
The band then moved into the sightreading portion of the contest where they are asked to play a piece of unfamiliar music.
“We are given seven minutes to prepare to perform the piece of music,” said Vaughan. “The first four minutes, I can only talk about the music and point out certain movements. During the last three minutes, I can sing, count, or do what I need to do to explain how the music should be played.”
All three judges gave the band a superior rating of all 1’s.
“We really practiced on our sightreading skills,” Vaughan said. “Every judge said the band was very focused and professional during the seven minutes we had to prepare, which paid off when we performed.”
The director said the ability to read music has been the biggest struggle for the young band that is 80 percent eighth and ninth graders.
The band director said between the youth of the band and the missed instruction time due to COVID, he and his wife, Dana Vaughan, who serves as assistant director, split the band and did remediation work to bring the music reading ability up to speed.
“Winning Sweepstakes is a huge accomplishment for this band,” said Vaughan. “I’ve gone back and looked as far as I can, and this is the first time in at least 18 years an Albany band has earned this title. When you realize that we only had two members who had been to concert and sightreading before, you can appreciate the effort these kids have put in.”
Unfortunately, this is not a year where 2A bands can advance to state, so Vaughan will be looking for other contests to submit the band’s recordings.
In the meantime, Vaughan is already starting to work on next fall’s halftime show.
“There were lots of moments today where the band played with a really good sound,” Vaughan said. “That is where we are headed in the future, extending that amount of time, and that can only come from spending time behind a horn.”
